Sarah sat down on the bed and looked around listlessly at her daughter’s bedroom. She had been crying again. Emily might be gone but the room was far from empty. Her daughter’s presence was everywhere. It was in the shelves full of books which she had read, the posters blaring out a recent enthusiasm for saving the planet, the old trainers kicked halfway under the bed, and more than anything it was in the small tree covered in tiny necklaces, bracelets and rings which she didn’t wear any more. The leftovers from a childhood. If she sat here much longer she would be crying again. It wasn’t so much the things that Emily had left behind when she disappeared off to uni that made her heart sink, it was the things which she had taken with her. The corner near the window looked empty without Budge Bear’s stern face glaring at her, and there was a space on the wall which looked very odd now that the Arctic Monkeys poster had been rolled up and whisked away to a new home. Emily hadn’t even bothered to move the other posters around to make it look right. Feeling as if she was doing something very dangerous indeed Sarah carefully peeled a festival poster away from its place up in the far corner and stuck it down firmly in the middle of the empty space. That looked better. She would be in so much trouble if Emily could see that. The sign on the door forbidding her (or anyone else) to even enter the room without permission was still there. Touching anything that was inside the room would never have been a possibility. There would have been screaming. Tears. Something might even have been thrown.
What hurt more than anything was that it was only the things which really mattered to her daughter which had been packed into the boot of the car. The bits and pieces strewn around in front of her were the rejects. They were the things which had lost out in the competition to get into a car already stuffed full of belongings that Emily claimed that she couldn’t live without. Sarah lifted off the necklace which she had bought her daughter, only a couple of years earlier, and ran the tiny coloured boxes through her fingers. Emily had really begged for that necklace when they had gone down to London, and now it was forgotten. Like her mother. That was what this was all about of course. She felt abandoned. She had been discarded along with the rest of the things in Emily’s life that were now surplus to requirements.
It was a good thing that Ray had gone off to work or he would have made fun of her. He had taken on board that Emily had left home over a year ago, when she had flown off to Australia and the Far East on her gap year. He had poked fun at Sarah’s worry every time there was an email describing white water rafting, bungee jumping, and worst of all lurid descriptions of a red light district wandered into by accident and men who undressed you with their eyes. “Look”, he had said, “you keep saying you want to know what she’s bloody doing so don’t go complaining when she tells you. The time to worry is when she shuts up.” He had been proved right. Emily had come home leaner, browner, and with a confidence that seemed to have grown overnight. Maybe that had something to do with the blond guy who used to smile out of the photograph that sat near the bed. His name was Greg, but that was all she had managed to find out. You could almost hear the doors slamming in Emily’s brain if you tried to get any more out of her than that. That photo had been one of the first things to disappear into the case. Sarah put the picture of Rusty holding one of his favourite dog chews in its place. He deserved it. That dog was missing Emily nearly as much as she was. He should have had his photo put in the boot of the car too.
It might help if she could clear the room. They could do with the space, but Emily would be coming back for holidays and it would feel too much like throwing her out. Anyway the things in it still belonged to Emily, even if she didn’t really want them any more, and at least she could come in here and sit among them. Remembering.
The thing was, Emily had said that she would ring. That was what she had shouted anxiously after the car as it pulled away, but it hadn’t happened. It had been just over two weeks now. Yes, of course Sarah could ring her mobile, she had picked it up often enough to do just that, but the sound of Emily’s voice inside her head had always stopped her. “Stop fussing mother. I’m fine.” Emily was always fine- even when she clearly wasn’t. She had sent one text, and that was it. Sarah picked up her phone, which was sitting next to her on the bed just in case, and looked at it again.
Uni fab. No probs. X 4 Rusty.
At least Emily was missing the dog. She didn’t know that he had pulled her grey jumper into his bed and was sleeping on it. The same grey jumper which should have been put on the back seat of the car. She would either say “Oh bless,” or have a real strop when she found out. Sarah was about to go downstairs and dig the jumper out to see if he had chewed it when the phone rang. Without even looking to see who it was, hands shaking, she pushed the button to answer it.
“Hello?”
“That was quick. You’re not sitting in that bloody bedroom again are you? Get a life.”
Ray. Damn. She did have a life and it had revolved around her kids. A life which had been taken away from her. He should realise that. An edginess crept into Sarah’s voice.
“No I’m not. Cheek. What did you want?”
“Very nice. Do you want me to bring a takeaway home with me? We can have Chinese now Emily’s gone.”
“You needn’t sound so pleased.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Yes, bring a takeaway. Whatever.”
“Ok. See you soon.”
Sarah threw the phone down on the bed and stared into space. She sometimes wondered if Ray missed Emily at all. He didn’t talk about her much. When she had showed him the text he had just nodded. His only daughter had left home and his sole reaction was, great- we can eat Chinese food now. Never mind. At least she didn’t have to cook. Slowly she let her mind drift away, back into the times when they had been a family, not just a group of people living in the same house. How was she going to learn to talk to him again with neither of the children there to keep the peace, acting as a kind of diluting agent, spreading noise and colour when there was nothing to talk about?
She was woken from her daydream by the sound of the front door banging and the chiming bells of her mobile ringing insistently. Sarah!
“Hello.”
“Hi mum. You sound a bit bleary.”
“How are you doing? I’ve been so worried.”
Sarah could see Emily’s wrinkled nose and dismissive shrug on the other end of the phone.
“Don’t fuss. It’s all good. We’ve been having our first lectures this week.”
“Was that all right?”
“Yes,” Emily lengthened the vowel into a bored drawl. “Of course it was.”
“Good.”
“What are you doing?”
There was a little girl quality in her daughter’s voice that Sarah hadn’t heard for a long time. She wanted to know. She really did want to know.
“I’m sitting on your bed.”
“WHAT?”
“I said I’m sitting on your bed.”
There was a long silence.
“You haven’t moved anything have you? You haven’t been touching my stuff?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Sarah lied.
“It’s still my bedroom.”
“I know it is.”
“And I shall want it back.”
“Yes.”
The rest of the conversation went by in a blur as Sarah pulled out plates and glasses for the Singapore noodles which Ray had brought home with the phone wedged to her ear. Finally she had satisfied Emily that the dog was fine, her room was untouched, and they had worked out how many days it was until she came home for a study break.
“Is dad there?”
“Your daughter wants a word.”
Sarah passed the phone to Ray, taking no notice of his upturned eyes, and tipped her noodles onto the plate. It was still Emily’s room, and that would have to be enough for now. Emily might not be in it, but she hadn’t quite left home yet. Perhaps she never really would.